-5.90(-0.44%)

-0.20(-1.17%)

-0.01(-0.71%)

Microsoft just launched an artificial intelligence bot for teens that has 'no chill'

(YouTube/Screenshot) On Wednesday, Microsoft unveiled a few new teen-oriented social media accounts that will chat all day.

But users won't be speaking to a person, they'll be talking to "Tay," Microsoft's new bot that's powered by artificial intelligence.

The easiest way to converse with Tay is on Twitter. It's at @tayandyou. All users have to do is tweet at it as if it were a real person and it'll tweet back in a kind of internet patois that doesn't sound like it's coming from a computer.

"Tay is an artificial intelligence chat bot designed to engage and entertain through casual and playful conversation," Microsoft explains. Tay's Twitter profile, likely written by a human, describes it as "the official account of Tay, Microsoft's A.I. fam from the internet that's got zero chill!"

Microsoft says Tay can tell a joke, play a game like "would you rather," tell stories, and rate pictures that you send it.

Tay isn't the first Twitter bot to sound like a teen. Previously, a bot called Olivia Taters gained some notoriety by tweeting like a teen, and people who remember using AIM instant messaging might remember long conversations with a bot called Smarter Child.

But unlike previous attempts at teenage bots, Tay was developed using a learning algorithm that gets better the more data it receives. The more data Tay recieves, the better its responses should get. Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet compares Tay to XiaoIce, a chatbot Microsoft developed for the Chinese market that proved to be extremely popular. Microsoft also develops Cortana, a voice assistant.

Microsoft says Tay learned its way with words by mining public data supplemented by editorial staff that includes comedians.